80 TOMMY 



both feet and, spreading his wings on the ground, 

 looked all round him with infinite satisfaction. 

 The mouse squeaked, but he stopped that by cracking 

 its skull quietly with his beak. Then he gathered 

 himself up and flew to the perch with his prize. 



One thing I noted about Tommy most emphati- 

 cally. He never showed a sign of affection, or 

 what is called attachment. He maintained a strictly 

 bowing acquaintance with me. He was not afraid, 

 but he would suffer no familiarity. He would 

 come and eat, with due ceremony, out of my hand, 

 but if I offered to touch him he was surprised and 

 affronted and went off at once. When I moved to 

 another house I found that I could not continue 

 to keep him, so I sent him to the zoological garden, 

 where I visited him sometimes, but he never vouch- 

 safed a token of recognition. His heart was locked 

 except to his own kin. 



But since that time, when I have seen an owl, 

 even a barn owl, or a great horned owl, swiftly 

 cross the sky in the darkness of night, I have felt 

 that I could accompany it, in imagination, on its 

 secret quest. It will arrive silently, like the angel 

 of death, in a tree overlooking a field in which a 

 rat, whose hour has come, is furtively feeding, all 

 alert and tremulous, but unaware of any impending 

 danger. The rat will go on feeding, unconscious 

 of the mocking curtsey and the baleful eyes that 

 follow with mute attention its every motion, until 

 the hand of the clock has moved to the point assigned 



